At 09:07 PM 10/5/2005 -0400, you wrote:
>Is the "industrial" design defined as minimal, uncluttered?

That's one type of design, not necessarily the right one to use in a given
case.

I think most designs could benefit from this as it makes things less
>complicated.

On mechanical design-- given the complexities of injection molding, a simple
shape with no texture or other details and a sharp geometric design
could look pretty crummy (visible knit lines and flow lines, visible slight
distortion) and could be difficult to remove from the mold. A more complex
shape could be much more forgiving of normal imperfections and could
require much less handwork of the tooling (polishing, for example). It
could also look good longer due to visually hiding nicks and scratches
that develop during normal use.

>I believe it really is a "zen" thing, though I don't know
>if I'm qualified to use that word :)
>Minimalist artistic design (as I would call the "industrial" design)
>makes things appear monolithic and superior, though they may not be
>functionally.
>The design of the iPod is nice imo. The one problem is that the
>polycarbonate front scratches VERY easily. Other than that I enjoy it
>very much.

Polycarbonate is a very tough, but rather soft plastic, so it's bound
to pick up scratches. How much they 'show' is partially a function of
the design.

>I don't see how the "industrial" design fits your applications though
>because it would probably make things more expensive to manufacture,
>would it not?

A bit, but it's mostly up-front cost. The cost of a molded part is
mostly determined by the weight (materials), maximum thickness (time
required to cool) and surface area in the split-line plane (clamping
pressure and injection pressure of machine required). The cost of the
mold is somewhat higher for more complex parts of a given size, but
if the design is good, maybe not much different.

>[drifting away from Apple...]
>I believe the industrial design stretches to how devices operate as
>well. The most direct and efficient [for the user!] method should be
>taken. It can be hard for engineers to think like the typical user but
>it is the only way to make things nice to use.

Remote controls are an example. Part of it is the designer must
understand what similar devices the user will likely be familiar with and
try to fit into that reality, even if it isn't optimal in a global
sense. For example, I'd never buy something with an alphanumeric keyboard
that isn't QWERTY layout. Some products have been designed with ABCD
layouts because the designers assumed their target market didn't know
how to type.

>[back to Apple]
>I believe they left out some nice possible features to make the iPod
>easy enough for the typical user.

I come back to remote controls- some of them look like the engineers ran
amuck and put every conceivable feature in there.. most of which the average
user will never even try once. Apple sometimes goes too far (the one button
mouse) but at least they are considering the alternatives. The 80% of features
you'll never use should not inhibit the use of the 20% that you'll use
all the time (back to Pareto's Principle).

Best regards,

Spehro Pefhany --"it's the network..."            "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com




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